By Accident or Design
by cuddlesome
Summary: Kylo Ren wins out on Starkiller.


Kylo Ren does not expect the swings that he makes with his saber as the scavenger scrambles up the side of the outcropping to connect. Not really. He does not have the precise readout of marks of contact on the body that Luke Skywalker had him memorize years ago when he learned the basics of Shii-Cho. His mind is awash with boiling, foaming anger. Only some deeply-ingrained instinct or, perhaps if he wants to idealize, the Force causes him to make a mad slash for the Cho Mok point of contact when she exposes it.

And so, before conscious thought even catches up with what he is doing, the flame-toothed mess of his lightsaber cuts through her leg just below the knee.

WWWrrrRRRRRRRRrRKKSSHWRRRRwRRR **sssSSHHHHKSSSK**!

The powerful, beautiful, awful scavenger girl goes down in a tumble of slush and crumbled rock that belies the regality with which she had ignited his grandfather's lightsaber. Kylo winces before he can stop himself at the sound of her piteous scream as she falls.

Her disembodied foot and bit of leg falls into a snowbank, not visible except for a bit of ragged char peeking out over the smooth white.

The lightsaber, ghost-blue blade extinguishing, hits with the same defeated appearance as when he had thrown it from the traitor's hands; just a filigreed cylinder of metal again.

The snow makes her own impact seem cushiony soft, the effect added to with the upward puff of powder that accompanies it.

Kylo knows better. She is stunned. Whether that can be blamed on the shock of her newly lost foot or the crash of hitting the ground or both is irrelevant. The result is the same.

Snuffling like a Kath hound with its snout dripping with blood, Kylo sidles forward, his left hand closed around his side as he shuts off his own lightsaber. The pain throbs out of tempo with the crunch of his booted footsteps. He staggers, the taxation of fighting two people back to back while wounded catching up to him. Kylo closes his fist and pounds the gore-soaked fissure again. He has no need to spike his energy and fuel the dark side roiling around him anymore, but it helps him focus, or so he tells himself. His vision darkens at the edges and all he can see is the off-center, discolored splotch of her body marring the landscape.

He stands over the scavenger for a moment, swallowing her in his shadow, head hanging in a way that belies the pride he should feel as the victor. Nevertheless, he drinks in the triumph.

It does not taste like what he expects.

He had gotten a sample when he incapacitated that double-crossing drone, but as he looks down at her all his palate registers is the way his wound and hers taint the snow-polished air.

The girl starts to move, her breath rushing back to her. Kylo goes to retrieve his grandfather's lightsaber before she can get any ideas. It belongs to him, rightfully won, he thinks in a way that feels more empty than he imagined. He bends over to pick it up this time. He does not think he could pull it to him with the Force even if he wanted to. The Force whispers, distant, and something in Kylo fractures at the sudden idea that he has done something wrong.

He shakes his head. All of this—

his lightsaber's ragged blade pierces cleanly through Han Solo but not cleanly enough he still looks aware far too aware the light in his eyes does not go out at once he is able to stare Kylo Ren right in the face to see to touch the killer of not just him but his son too the hurt that should not arise in him but does regardless compounds when across the planets and stars and moons and darkness yawning betwixt he feels Leia Organa's heart turn to ash the scavenger the soldier the Wookie all scream all deliver the wordless message that there is no going back

—is destiny.

She reaches out to try to stop him because she has not yet comprehended that she lost. Her bare hand has become a frostnipped red. Kylo lifts the lightsaber hilt out of reach. Had it been anyone else, he would have entertained the idea of stomping on the fingers and grinding them under his heel. It is her, though, so he contents himself with nudging them away with the toe of his boot.

She scowls at him and grabs at his ankle, turning onto her front and bending one of her knees as if to try to get up with him as support. Unfortunately for her, she tries to put her weight on the burnt, uneven nub. She screams again. Kylo despises how his guts quail on her behalf. The scavenger girl's grip on his ankle slips and she curls up on her side in the snow. She gasps through her teeth, scrunching her eyes closed as she reaches out to touch near the injury.

Kylo studies her as he clips his lightsaber to his belt and jams the newly acquired one between his belt and his torso on his right side, ignoring the discomfort that comes with it.

Every story he had ever heard Luke Skywalker tell about the sensations of the loss of his hand comes flooding back. Skywalker always fudged the details of the whos and the wheres and the whys, but he always emphasized in great detail the severity of cutting off an extremity.

Deep within Kylo's mind, Ben Solo's corpse stares at him with arraignment in his dull brown eyes.

Kylo crouches down on one knee, genuflecting to his fallen opponent. The scavenger's eyes open wide. He pays no mind to the way that she hisses for him to stay back or the way she writhes when he picks her up. Kylo puts her over his right shoulder, one arm wrapped around her slight waist, and stands. He does not have the strength to offer a gesture in the form of a more elegant hold.

The supreme leader wanted him to bring him the girl, so he will. Never mind that that particular order had been made in a very different context or that Kylo himself wants to have a stake in her fate. The things he could teach this girl, the girl who has choked down loneliness and pain and fear in the same heavy draughts he has.

She pounds his back and kicks him in the stomach with her remaining foot. She calls him a monster again. Kylo only assures her that he will have her injury treated. He stares down at the cauterized flesh as he does so and pats the thigh of her injured leg with the hand not braced against her torso.

The darkness around the edges of his vision has become a permanent fixture along with a couple of dots of white where snow catches on his lashes. He has to take care not to fall and have his weight come crashing down on top of her. Adding broken bones to the mix would not make her any more agreeable or easy to carry.

The girl continues to struggle as he starts walking. She is a tawny, oversized sparrow attempting to thrash her wings even if she will drop back to the ground upon release. Kylo wishes he could use the Force to put her under, but attempting to get a hold on the ever-present energy at the moment is like grasping at the silvery white clouds that are is breath in the frigid air.

Dimly, Kylo realizes that he pants through his mouth. The vapor that arises from between his lips are nothing compared to the smoke that has begun to rise from Starkiller's oscillator. The planet is collapsing. He does not need the Force to know that.

Kylo's grip on the scavenger tightens. He will not let any harm come to her. He grimaces as he qualifies that promise, looking at her leg—he will not let any more harm come to her, at least not by the dying amalgamation of ice and metal and sunlight.

Whether or not he will be able to stay his own hand from hurting her again is debatable.

The girl seems to have expended most of her energy. Her punches get fewer and farther between. Kylo feels relieved up until he realizes with the heaving of her chest and shaking of her shoulders that she is crying.

Is it over Han Solo's death? The impending death of the traitor where he lays prostrate in the snow? Her own predicament?

In the latter case, Kylo can offer condolence. He reaffirms to her that he will get her fixed, good as new. For the barest moment, he leans his cheek against her hip. Her body feels icy wet from where she had fallen in the snow. He tells her he will help her.

She says nothing. She goes limp, wilting against his body. He does not have time to stop and see if the overpowering stress has caused her to faint or if she has finally given up as she should have done some time ago.

Kylo leaves spatters of blood behind him as he drags his boots through the snow toward a part of the base where he can get a ship before everything is blown to hell. Her wound leaves more subtle marks of a few charred bits of skin and flesh that flake off of her leg.

Once they are gone, both trails are smothered by the snow, then by ash, then are obliterated from existence along with everything else.


End file.
